Counting my blessings: Oregon Trip 2010

In August of last year, we drove to Oregon for a family trip with my mom's family. On the way there we stopped for a picnic at a park where there were some very tame squirrels and a woman offering peanuts for the kids to feed them (her son was already feeding them). As a fun side note, I have pictures of myself feeding squirrels in a different park in Oregon when I was younger, too. And they not only ate out of our hands, they climbed right up on our laps.

Later on Sunday we arrived at our destination, a beautiful (and huge) house near Lincoln Beach with plenty of room for everyone. The west side of the house was all windows with a lovely view of the beach. We took some family pictures.

My cousin Matthew and his very fun wife, Kate. It's a little hard to tell, but she was picking him up.

My Grandparents who arranged and paid for everything for the trip.

The next day we went to Seal Beach where we discovered anemones and tiny hermit crabs in the tide pools. It was fun to help the kids make these discoveries. Hyrum wasn't so sure about touching them, but Annie was brave enough to enjoy making the anemones curl up.

Our whole group, minus my Great Aunt Marsha and Great Uncle Bob who joined us for a couple of days.

Then we explored the Newport Aquarium with some neat creatures. Annie's favorite were the otters. There were some incredible massive crabs (king crabs) that I wouldn't like to run into outside the aquarium. I wouldn't like to run into these guys either...

Adam gave Hyrum his very old digital camera. He was telling everyone (from our group) to stop and pose for him. This was inside of the shark tunnel which Hyrum was especially excited about.

Look out!

We had a picnic at a campground and there were a few furry little friends living by the picnic tables. They would come right up to us when they saw we had food. They would hop right under the table where we were sitting and beg for food. And they were picky, too. They didn't want our lettuce. They wanted our potato chips!

We went to Cape Kiwanda to the biggest sand dune in... somewhere. I can't remember exactly. But it was so huge it was practically a mountain. In fact, if we didn't live where we do I might call it a mountain. Hyrum and I and several others went part way up and saw some neat views from one side. But Adam went with my dad, Marie, Matthew and Kate to the top and took some fun pictures. Here they are on their way up.

Jumping on top of the world (massive sand dune that is). Too bad you can't really tell how high they are.

Proof that Adam was there, on the way down.

This was part of the view from where I made it to, on a different side of the sand dune. There was a cave that would make strange noises when the waves crashed in the opening.

A sea lion was lounging on the beach and people were gathered around watching it. I thought it must have been annoyed but it just lay there for a long time. My Grandpa was excited to give Hyrum a closer view of it, but Hyrum wasn't so sure he wanted to get that close.

We had a fire on the beach that evening. We roasted marshmallows and enjoyed the view and each others' company. The fog came in later and added to the atmosphere.

We had a blast with this human rubber band (I think that's what it is called). Annie liked it as a hammock. As for the adults, it was the kind of fun that serious adults don't get too often, where you laugh so hard you can't breathe.

Annie especially liked the marshmallows. She kept sneaking them and stuffing them whole into her mouth.

On the next day, we went for a hike in a beautiful forest. I love the intense and abundant green with the moss and the mist.

The following day we went to one of my favorite beaches (Oswald Beach) which combines amazing tide pools, lots of sand and great scenery, a little waterfall, and a hike through another gorgeous Oregon forest.

There were tons of star fish. Unfortunately the water was freezing (as was to be expected... but the whole trip I was surprised by how cold it was. I guess it had been a long time since I had been there! I guess maybe I was young enough to not be so stunned by the cold last time I went there. Or maybe it really was warmer...) We did do some wading in the tide pools so we could get to the good views, but our feet turned bright red. After a few minutes they would go numb, if you could stand it that long.

On the hike to and from the beach, there are these amazing trees. I wondered if Dr. Suess visited Oregon for the inspiration for some of his trees. And other trees were cool because of their potential for play.

So green and gorgeous!

Later that day we went to Hug Point. There were a few neat little waterfalls with streams running off to the ocean. Hyrum had fun running and jumping over them. I didn't include all the pictures but we have a fun series showing Hyrum getting ready, running as fast as he can, jumping and... as you can see in the last picture of this here... landing in the middle of the stream.

At Hug Point, there are two beaches separated by a rock cliff. Depending on how high the tide is, the water hugs the rock. Or if the tide is right you can walk between the water and the rocks. Or if the timing is like it was when we went, you have to watch the waves and then run along "hugging" (close to) the rock to avoid the frigid water. A few of our group went around to see the other side first, including Hyrum. As we were watching from a distance, we saw all of the adults coming back from the other side. They ran around the rock, missing the water and we wondered, where is Hyrum? A few seconds later (too late) we saw Hyrum running around the rock, perfect timing to get soaked by a wave. If you click on the picture you can see Adam happened to catch the moment.

For the last couple of days we stayed at another lovely house at Rockaway Beach. You can't really see how nice it is in these pictures, but they might help us remember. We had a fun evening in the backyard playing frisbee, sitting around a fire and seeing some bats swoop overhead at dusk.

On the way home we stopped at another favorite destination from my childhood, the Colombia River Gorge. In 8th grade I was supposed to write about the most beautiful place and this is what I wrote about. Again, it is lush green everywhere, but more temperate (warm-- at least in August) and there are amazing waterfalls.